The Morning Plum: Obamacare may perish. What would Republicans do instead?

[Swede]

Another one by Greg Sargent:

It’s impossible to predict the politics of a loss at the Supreme Court. I tend to doubt that it’s a positive for Dems in any way. In any case, it’s premature to assume a loss.

But if we’re going to discuss the politics of this possibility, surely the demise of Obamacare — which Republicans have been agitating for since even before it became law — should put pressure on Republicans to say what they would do instead.

So: When is the fact that Republicans would replace Obamacare’s most important provisions with nothing meaningful in the way of a solution to the problem of the uninsured going to become a part of the media narrative?

Both Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney have basically confirmed that if Obamacare is repealed, they would effectively replace it with ... nothing, particularly when it comes to those with preexisting conditions. Yet as Jason Linkins points out, in Romney’s case it was left to Jay Leno, of all people, to reveal this for all to see. You’d think more news orgs and commentators would at some point begin to grapple with the fact that the other major party isn’t offering anything meaningful to deal with one of the nation’s most pressing problems. This seems tangentially important, now that the destruction of the Dem effort to solve it is a real possibility.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-obamacare-may-perish-what-would-republicans-do-instead/2012/03/29/gIQAnOHiiS_blog.html

[Fawke Em]

1. More people probably saw Leno than watch the news,

so that may have been a good thing.

[hatrack]

2. Uh . . . tax-free health savings accounts! Yeah, that's it! Uh . . . maybe some tax cuts?

And, of course, Tort Reform, because nothing will make your health care better and more affordable than losing the right to sue for a botched procedure or diagnosis.

[FSogol]

3. They would do nothing.

[librechik]

4. what would they do instead? Raise the price of premiums every six months

and buy a new vacation home or two--oh, and if they're Cheney, ghet a new heart at 71 on the public dime.

[guitar man]

5. This

[hatrack]

6. Makes you wonder why Sanctorum canceled his big health care speech today . . .

I'd guess because it would be about three minutes long.

[librechik]

7. They would Replace it with EXACTLY the same program (authored by the Heritage Foundation)

That became ACA. But with a new name , the Dole-McConnell Golden Mandated Health Care --

cuz if a Republican puts in a mandate, there is nothing uncontitutional about it whatsoever.

Nah, they aren't that nice. They would do nothing but buy stock in Pharma and Health insurance companies and live it up on the profits.

[taught_me_patience]

8. Allow companies to sell insurance across state lines

So that all insurance companies can move to South Dakota and act with complete and total impunity.

[kenny blankenship]

10. Maybe that's what it will take

for Americans to unanimously agree (they're already pretty close to it now) that we'd do much better to rid ourselves of this particular "industry"?

As Milton said, "They also serve who only fuck things up."

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. They're still staring blankly at that blank piece of paper

they insisted that President Obama and the Dems start over with prior to its final passage. They have no ideas for health care reform (or anything else). Now, whether or not people end up caring about that or not is anybody's guess but I imagine that once people realize that they'll be losing some of those new provisions, they might get a bit cranky. Whether that will be enough to get the Republicans to get off their butts and actually constructively work with Dems to come up with a new, better comprehensive reform plan is also anybody's guess. I guess we would just need to wait and see what happens. Of course, the corporate media has gotten away with helping the Republican Tea Party lie, distort, smear ACA this long, so, frankly, I'm not too confident that Republicans will be actually forced to confront the problem anytime soon.



P.S. I hate feeling cynical. I try to be more of an optimistic person generally.

[kenny blankenship]

11. I hope Democrats will have the sense not to prod them into action

Nothing good can come from Republicans, or their drunk tanks - I mean their think tanks. Any GOP approved or GOP derived solution will soon have you begging to have the problem back.

[woo me with science]

12. No, let's not talk about how Republicans would be worse.

Let's not come up with reasons that this corporate mandate scam to profit the insurance companies is good enough. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=473218

Instead, let's talk about what DEMOCRATS SHOULD DO. There is broad support for single payer - much more than for this corporate turd: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002472947 Democrats should push, publicly, speak out, orate, rally the nation, and demand Medicare for all. They should push until the country is demanding it. They should NOT settle for this corporate profit scam orchestrated by the one percent in both parties.

Newsflash: The Republicans would ALWAYS do something worse. Conveniently, they would do something worse. That is how the one percent in both parties dupe and coerce the 99 percent into accepting this "lesser of two evils" corporate crap.